When a character is pregnant in a series, especially a sitcom, there will be the inevitable Screaming Birth.

Commonly, TV birth happens mere minutes after the water breaks, precipitating a mad rush (in a taxi) to the hospital, frantic calls to the doctor, and apoplexy (or better yet, a nice dramatic swoon) by the father-to-be. And for some reason, nobody ever decides to take an epidural (as seen in the above quote, the modern workaround for this is having the woman opt for a "natural," painkiller free birth, often under the belief that giving birth is a natural part of being a woman she wants to fully experience. This line of logic usually only lasts until the first contraction hits.)

The rest of the episode is spent with the pregnant character lying flat on her back (the hardest conventional position in which to give birth, but the easiest for doctors and cameras), in pain, sweating, crying, cursing out her husband/boyfriend/babydaddy ("You did this to me! You're never touching me again, you bastard!"), or screaming his name if he's not there, and in many cases, often suddenly developing near superhuman grip strength, being able to suddenly shatter every bone in the hand of any poor sap who to tells her to squeeze their hand to help with the pain. Eventually, she's able to push a kid out of her crotch with all attendant drama. This ends with a damp but otherwise perfectly clean (three-month old) baby being held by an exhausted but beatifically smiling mother and an ecstatic father or father-figure. Just don't expect to see the delivery of the afterbirth, or the stitching-up of any perineal tears, either of which would no doubt spoil the mood. You will occasionally see the cutting of the umbilical cord by the nervous father, always obscured from direct sight and often Played for Laughs.

Since the 1970s this is usually preceded by a Lamaze Class earlier in the season.

In Real Life, Screaming Births do happen, especially when there are complications, but it's often a self-fulfilling prophecy if a woman tenses up in anticipation. In any event, it generally isn't the birth, which is almost always the shortest part of the process, that is painful, and is done without medication at any rate. The painful part is the labor that precedes it, which can last anywhere from two hours to three days.

Examples:

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Anime and Manga

Vandread The Second Stage uses this, coupled with a trapped in an elevator moment, right when the enemy attacks Nirvana and the systems are crippled with a virus. Hibiki must assist Ezra in delivering, the girls must manage without any VanDread backup, and Ezra could only get (remote) assistance from Duelo who's a doctor, but inexperienced with female physiology, and Magno's experience.

In the long run, both Hibiki and Duelo lose it during the birth, but Dita and Magno manage to keep it together and deliver the baby.

Tony's birth in Toward the Terra. With the added bonus of telepathy meaning that it was not only the mother who was in screaming pain, but everyone else in the area as well.

In Fullmetal Alchemist, when Ed and Al have to witness a woman giving birth, they do what most teenage boys would do in that situation... PANIC!!! Except for Winry, who, despite being a mechanical genius, knows what to do from her parents' books and coaches everyone into doing what needs to be done. And it gets done to the degree that the doctor who comes in later compliments her on a job well done.

Naruto's birth, when a flashback is shown of his mother, Kushina Uzumaki, having him. Her exact words are "OH GOD, IT HUUUURRRRRTS!" Justified in that said baby had a gestation period of 10 months instead of the usual 9, plus there was the whole Kyuubi thing (Kushina was its Host at that moment) which would offer complications.

A very justified example in Gosick, where the mother ( Cordelia Gallo) was chained to a freezing-cold altar, flat on her back, with no visible assistance whilst a bunch of amateur mystics (including the rapist who'd given her the child in the first place) were performing a sinister ceremony on and around her. Frankly, it's a miracle that she and the child (Victorique) survived, and it's one of the most disturbing scenes in the show. Not to mention that the mother who gave birth has quite petite body, so, yeah, it's quite obstetrician's nightmare.

The author of the series ElfQuest, Wendy Pini, made a very deliberate aversion to the screaming birth scenario at the end of the first major arc. True, it happens during a moment of great significance, but the mother is sitting up halfway, supported by her husband, and their two little children (roughly 3 and 5) stand by watching. It's a joyous event, and there is sweat and strain but no screaming or negative emotions. The midwife takes the little baby, cord still attached, and lays him on the mother's stomach, and the whole family cuddles up together.

Not quite as joyous, but much later when Kahvi gives birth, she's squatting over an animal skin, holding onto bars, sweating and straining, while a tribesmate plays a flute. Again, no screaming or negative emotions. This is the general case with every shown birth to date. Also quite a breath of fresh air, to treat it as a joyous and natural occasion with the mother-to-be as agent instead of patient.

Anyway, the fact that elves have a two year gestation period means they have plenty of time to prepare...

One of the later storylines showed Skywise's mother resisting the process of labor, as she's been captured by humans and fears they'd kill or abandon her baby if she gives birth. Suppressing her contractions is apparently far more painful than yielding to them in the end.

Partially subverted in the comic Gold Digger where weres like the main character Brittany Diggers suffer no labor pains whatsoever due to the lycanthropic enchantment. Then played straight when it turned out Brittany's enchantments weren't entirely intact, causing her labor to be much much worse than a normal human's... until the werewolf midwife Jetta came up with the impromptu solution of biting the expectant mother, sharing Jetta's own enchantments and causing things to go back to the wereperson norm of no pains whatsoever.

Fully invoked in The Pulse. Jessica Jones screams so loud that the reporters gathered outside Dr. Strange's house can hear her.

Fully justified times six in Fables when Snow White is in labor with her and Bigby's kids.

Snow White:Oh God! Oh God!Oh God! Put a gun to my head and shoot me now! I'll die this time, I promise....Please, please, please just make them stop coming out of me! I'll do anything! I'll give you the key to any one of Bluebeard's treasure rooms! Your choice!

Flash "Should I be boiling water? You're supposed to boil water - or is that for the flu? Uh... do we have paper towels?"

The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic Windfall revolves around the Elements of Harmony reuniting for the birth of Fluttershy and Big Macintosh's first foal. After several hours in labor, the normally quiet and demure Fluttershy is heard screaming her head off at Big Macintosh and trying to strangle him. Granny Smith nods sagely and remarks that Macintosh is getting off easy compared to her husband at the birth of her first child.

Child of the Storm mentions that Lily Potter had one of these, with the full battery of screaming and violent threats to her husband of the exact details of what would happen if he ever touched her again.

Jenna has one of these combined with Instant Birth, Just Add Water in My Inner Life, panting and screaming the second her water breaks, squeezing Link's hand, and shouting "You did this to me! Damn you, Link!" Of course she instantly calms down midway through the birth (during some faux-drama) and after the baby comes out.

In the Pony POV Series, Discord's mother Entropy does not have a pleasant time birthing her children (due to being the opposite of life and thus the act of creating is even more painful for her), to the point the universe quakes from it. Afterwards, she erases her mate Havoc from existence (he wills himself back into it seconds later) for saying they might have to try again.

In the Soul Eater / Naruto crossover He'll Never Be My Son, it's implied that Medusa had one of these with Crona. The actual birth isn't shown (it skips from her telling Orochimaru, the father, that she's pregnant to twenty minutes after the birth), but it's mentioned that she smacked Kabuto in the face with a heavy book and gripped Orochimaru's hands so hard it left large bruises.

Frollo has one in Delivered From Frollo. It's so bad, he's almost breaking the chains holding him in place.

Zelda undergoes one in chapter 40 of Blood and Spirit. She even reflects in the narration that getting mortally slashed across the chest by a Majora-possessed Link was nothing compared to the pain of childbirth.

In Acts of Treason, the aged-up Myrcella has a difficult first birth after marrying Robb Stark. She's in labor for a long time (the baby was either breech or got stuck) and she has some form of PTSD due to having nightmares about dying in childbirth.

Happens a lot in Chrom/Female!Avatar fanworks dealing with the birth of Lucina, usually with Chrom banned from the birthing room and left to pace and fret while the female Avatar screams and suffers until the happy parents are cradling their new baby in their arms.

In Time Fixers Nicktoons Of The Future, Cindy's screams echo through the woods as she gives birth to Max at the campsite while Jimmy and the Nicktoons are trying to rescue Junior from the SpongeCog robots.

Film

In the opening of Batman Returns, The Penguin is born from one of these. And when his parents finally see him for the first time, the screaming only continues.

In Men in Black, an alien woman gives birth in the back of a taxi, and Will Smith's character is instructed to "Just catch." As the infant is born, huge tentacles emerge from the window of the vehicle and hoist him into the air.

The comedy movie Knocked Up uses this trope after the woman has been given medicine to speed labor — probably Pitocin, which makes the whole process more painful. She was opposed to being given this medicine and it was implied the labor may be in trouble, so she has reason to scream.

Parodied in The Movie of Coneheads, where the alien Connie's birth is accompanied by oceans of fluid, truly epic mugging from her mother Prymaat, glass-shattering howls, and literally crushing her husband's hand as she shouts "I hate you, Beldar! I hate yoooou!" And then Beldar, when asked by the obstetrician if he would like to cut the umbilical cord (and being offered a pair of scissors to do so), leans in and bites clean through it. Cue the obstetrician's humourous fainting.

The Lifetime Movie of the WeekFifteen and Pregnant employs this, sans the girl screaming at the baby's father (her own father chases the guy and his new girlfriend away).

Played straight to horrible squick-inducing levels in the 90's version of Frankenstein. Victor's mother dies after a horribly bloody birth and Victor COLLECTS AMNIOTIC FLUID (ewwwwwww!) from a woman who, despite the fact that her water is just breaking, screams like the baby is coming out sideways.

Used at the start of the 2009 Star Trek movie. Granted, the woman is allowed to sit up somewhat while she gives birth, and as the birth is taking place in the middle of an attack and evacuation (with her husband still on-board the ship), she has several perfectly good reasons to scream. The novelization also establishes that Kirk was not born that way in the original timeline, that the altered timeline with the stress brought on by Nero's attack and George Kirk's Heroic Sacrifice forced Winona into premature labor.

In the film of Vilhelm Moberg's The Emigrants tetralogy, Kristina's sixth childbirth is shown on-screen, and it's a screaming one.

Completely averted in the Sex and the City movie. The pregnant character in question goes into labor under relatively normal circumstances, is promptly taken to the hospital in a readily available car, and then the movie timeskips to a post-birth recap from her husband.

In the movie, Precious, the title character uses this when she goes into labor at school. The scene cuts to her being on a stretcher and she is screaming in pain. Lenny Kravitz, who is a nurse, comes to Precious' stretcher and tells her to stop screaming. She does for two seconds and then goes right back to screaming.

In Jersey Girl, Jennifer Lopez's character screams her head off during labor, and then immediately passes out and dies from some sort of brain trauma. J.Lo's terrible acting makes it pretty narmy, to be honest.

In his concert film, Himself, Bill Cosby described the birth of his first child:

"At the next contraction, my wife told everyone in the delivery room that my parents were never married!"

In Children of Men, Kee gives us lots of painful screams well before and during the delivery. Given that no-one on Earth has had a child in years, presumably she's more tense than a woman in her position would normally be.

Averted in Addams Family Values, when Morticia gives birth to Pubert, she does nothing worse than barely audible grunting. Then again, considering that she's Too Kinky to Torture, this is probably child's play for her. (Indeed, when asked if she is in excruciating pain, she just coyly answers 'oui'.)

The beginning of Taxi 2 has Daniel drive a pregnant woman and her husband to a hospital. He doesn't arrive in time, so the birth has to take place in his taxi — just when his girlfriend Lilly calls him on the cellphone. Lilly mistakes the moaning and screaming woman in Daniel's presence for an entirely different situation, what the woman says does anything but convince her otherwise, and even the husband's words when Daniel hands him the phone suggest that Daniel is having a ménage à trois.

Justified in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. Fanny, Little John's wife, is having birthing complications delivering her eighth child. Complications, according to Azeem, that could potentially kill her and the baby both if not addressed.

Commissar is about a commissar during the Russian Civil War who is forced to leave her Red Army unit and board with a peasant family when she becomes pregnant. Beyond all the screaming, and calls to the midwife to stop torturing her, Klavdia passes out and has a Dream Sequence about the fellow cavalryman who knocked her up.

In Blankman, Blankman and Kevin find a woman in labor while trapped in a broken elevator. Kevin tells her to hold his hand, and she blindly grabs his crotch. As the Delivery Guy, Blankman is quite nervous. All three end up screaming at once, two from pain and one from panic.

In WarCraft, Draka screams in pain as she gives birth. She's gone into labor while crossing the Portal, which causes complications.

Holocaust 2000: Sara gives birth to her and Robert's child while screaming, an event for which Robert himself is absent because he's convinced that his newborn is The Antichrist and tried to have it aborted against Sara's will before.

In Clan Of The Cave Bear, Ayla's long, screaming, bloody delivery of Durc frightened the rest of the Clan, and left her weak and near death for days afterward. More justified than many examples in that she's eleven years old and a Cro-Magnon giving birth to a Neanderthal father's child, a situation which usually results in Death by Childbirth for the mother, and no other character in the series has this.

A particularly ludicrous example comes from Stephen Baxter's Evolution, where a woman goes through a Screaming Birth... and then is able to calmly discuss what her newborn's actions mean in terms of evolutionary heritage a moment later. Then again, the book was written by a man.

In Lindsey Davis' Time to Depart, Helena Justina screams, cries, insults her husband, threatens divorce, and then breaks his hand. To be fair, this was in the Roman empire, with the lack of sophisticated midwifery that implies, and he was dousing her with olive oil at the time. (And most of the dramatic details are drawn from Falco's subsequent snarky letter to his best friend, so he may have exaggerated.)

Averted in Stephen King's The Breathing Method, in which the mother practices the titular breathing method, which is designed to let the woman "use her breath for something more useful than screaming". Unfortunately, this is a contributing factor in her death; the taxi driver taking her to hospital is creeped out when she's breathing heavily but not screaming, turns to check if she's okay, skids on a patch of ice, and crashes the cab, killing her, though she doesn't let a little thing like decapitation interfere with the delivery of her child. The narrator mentions that this was very common in the '30s, since women heard from everywhere that giving birth is very painful - so it turned out to be painful.

Twilight takes this one further as Bella's delivery of Renesmee is not just a screaming birth, but a spine-snapping, blood-vomiting nearly lethal birth. Granted Nessie WAS half-vampire and Bella was not...

Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind gives birth like this, but it's because her body shape is unfit for it. Scarlett gives birth easily, with almost no pain.

In the historical novel Red Plenty by Francis Spufford, a pregnant woman in the Soviet Union circa 1960 is shocked to hear the sound of screaming from another ward, and is relieved to find she isn't taken there...at first. She even reprimands another woman for using foul language during her contractions — and ends up swearing like a sailor herself. Hospitals use psychoprophylaxis (a Soviet-invented predecessor of Lamaze) but the inept Soviet system ensures that women and nurses are not properly instructed in the method; the woman ends up threatening the nurse with her influential husband to get hold of drugs to kill the pain (which is regarded as a capitalist delusion).

Apparently these were common in novels from the twenties, soon after it became possible to talk about childbirth at all; Flora in Cold Comfort Farm is surprised when someone gives birth easily, and reflects that it is not at all like the books she has read. (Inexact quote: "These days, she skimmed through new novels, and if her eye lighted on words like "screaming" or "sweat-dewed brow" or "clutching the bedpost", she put the book firmly back on the shelf".)

In Warrior Cats, while there isn't actually any screaming involved, the she-cats will be given a stick to bite down on when the pain comes. Said stick usually snaps at the end.

15 year old Diana Ladris has one in FEAR. In a pitch-black, scorching hot mine with two pyshcopaths who torture her relentlessly, no less. Played for drama.

In The Red Tent, this happens to Rachel as she gives birth to Joseph. Her screams actually scare away Jacob, who was pacing around outside the birthing tent. Justified Trope, as it was a difficult birth that almost killed her.

Phoebe's triplets, which is parodied in the same episode, where Joey goes through the same experience by passing a kidney stone.

Rachel & Ross when they had Emma, since Rachel spent over 40 hours waiting for the baby after her water broke. Then again, according to dates given in the series, she was pregnant for about thirteen months... There was also a woman next to her, who gave birth almost instantly, annoying Rachel.

Chandler & Monica subvert this with the baby they've arranged to adopt. The birth mother doesn't even realize she's in labor for a while, thinking she's just having stomach cramps. And, after everyone realizes the baby's coming, it's Monica who starts panicking and the birth mother who, in mid-contraction, has to calm her down.

This received a hilarious Call-Back on Deep Space Nine, when Keiko announced her second pregnancy. Chief O'Brien used the exact words, "having a baby", prompting a 'visibly alarmed Worf to exclaim, "Now?!" Upon finding out that the baby was due in seven months and Bashir jokingly suggesting Worf could assist with the delivery Worf came out with this choice line.

Worf: "Unfortunately, I will be away from the station at that time. Far away. Visiting my parents. On Earth. Excuse me."

Averted in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where Kira, the birthing woman was of an alien species whose births are generally quiet, serene, and painless. Although she was giving birth to a human child, hers was no exception. Ironically, she was acting as a surrogate for Keiko O'Brien, (who had an accident during her second pregnancy resulting in the baby being transferred to Kira via Applied Phlebotinum) whose first pregnancy was mentioned above.

Star Trek: Voyager. Justified when Ensign Wildman is giving birth to a Half-Human Hybrid with forehead spikes; the Doctor has to resort to teleporting the baby out of the womb when it gets stuck.

Lost has shown many births on screen, often ending badly for the mother. The second one was somewhat of an aversion - although the woman was lying on her back (in a forest, assisted only by her husband), when they showed the newborn, he was actually not only newborn-sized but covered in blood and other fluids.

The births in question are Aaron (on the island), Ben (whose mother subsequently dies), Ji Yeon (born in the future after Sun leaves the island), Locke (who is born premature and whose mother gives him up for adoption), Ethan (who is delivered by a time traveling Juliet), and Jacob and the Man in Black (whose mother is subsequently murdered by the mysterious woman who delivered them).

Don't forget Desmond and Penelope's son, Charlie, born on a boat in the Philippines.

Harmon Rabb delivers a baby in "Code Blue" in a DC hospital taken over by Hamas terrorists. During the woman's labor, he is instructed over a cell phone to check her dilation, but is reluctant to look under her dress, having never met her before. Panting, she tells him she doesn't have anything he hasn't seen before, so he bends down to look—then informs her with wide eyes that, in fact, he has never seen that before.

AJ Chegwidden delivers two babies in his office: Bud and Harriet's son in "Yeah, Baby", and another baby in "All ye Faithful".

Aunt Viv in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air when in labor with Nicky. Complete with serial hand crushing and ripping part of the banister off the stairs. There's a stuck in an elevator scene, but it's Will and Uncle Phil that are stuck, trying to get to the hospital.

Parodied in an episode of the UK sitcom Absolutely Fabulous, where there are separate "flashbacks" depicting the births of the two protagonists. Edwina's mother gives birth in a relentlessly "1950's" hospital setting, perfectly made-up and almost completely engulfed in white bedding; the only noise she makes is an almost subliminal "ooh!". Patsy's mother has her on a couch in a silk-strewn artist's garret, running through a loud and pretentious self-narration the entire time. How much of all this "actually happened" is open to debate.

Family Ties - Elyse goes into labor right when she is singing a song on TV and the sudden pain makes her hit the high note with an unexpected level of volume and pitch.

Subverted in that after the sudden shock of it she assures everyone it doesn't hurt too much, just a twinge every now and then. Probably because she already had three other kids prior she's used to it.

Murphy Brown Alongside Murphy's birth of Avery, one of her may secretaries also recalled her birth while Murphy was still pregnant.

Jane: I was in labor for thirty-seven hours. Over a day and a half of the most horrible, unbelievable pain I've ever felt in my life. And I was pinned under a bus once, so I know pain. They had to tie me down to the table after I kicked my obstetrician in the windpipe. My husband took a video, it's just hour after hour of me begging to be killed.

Newhart parodied this as Yuppie Stephanie managed to give birth with only a few yips, more concerned about the camera crew her TV Producer husband brought in to film the birth than about any pain she experienced.

Mad About You (where Jamie's mother, played by Carol Burnett, reacts to Jamie's decision to have a "natural" childbirth, with no epidural, with a hilarious "Are you out of your mind?!?" A great commentary on changing ideas on "modern" childbirth.)

This was most likely a Shout-Out to one of Burnett's famous quotes, where she attempted to describe the pain of childbirth to men: "Take your bottom lip and pull it over your head."

Doogie Howser, M.D. (Vinnie, not the titular Doctor, trapped in an elevator with a teacher. Fortunately, he and Doogie had spoken often on the subject of childbirth, this being a natural side-effect of their frequent discussions of sex.)

Night Court (About a dozen pregnant women trapped in the courthouse due to a blizzard. Years later, this occasioned a Continuity Nod when the only doctor available for another delivery was not an obstetrician: he sarcastically asked how many people who were not obstetricians had delivered babies, and everyone raised their hands.)

Doctor: What are you people? Some sort of cult?

Don't forget when Quon Lee gave birth. And ripped the sleeves off Roz's uniform.

On All in the Family, Gloria begins labor, and steps into a phone booth to let her parents know, then gets stuck. Funny, because of Sally Struthers' deft handling of the physical comedy. She makes it out of the booth in plenty of time, incidentally, as this birth is preceded by a realistically long labor. It was also the first birth scene on American television, and quite realistic— lots of panting, grunting and sweating, but no screaming, and a very, very boring wait in the white-walled labor room which had a bed, a chair, and one table. Hospitals didn't put TVs in them, and TVs only got a few channels anyway, and went off the air at midnight. It's also the first time a TV father (in the US) was in the delivery room, reflecting the fact that US hospitals were just beginning to allow this.

This is one of the earlier uses of "will they get there in time," and employs something mundane, a phone booth, as opposed to an elevator or a cab heading into traffic, which you know will be a problem as soon as the actress steps into it. Stepping into a phone booth seems totally innocuous. Struther makes the call to her parents, turns around, and discovers that door is stuck. ( It's important to note that nothing over the top silly, like Struthers being stuck because the booth is too small for a woman who is nine months pregnant; she fits fine. She is stuck in the booth because the door won't open.)

If a show tried to use this schtick today, it might not play as well, because the "will they get to the hospital?" is pretty old; it wasn't so cliche back then. And Struthers handles it beautifully. She isn't generally thought of as a physical comic, but she was up for anything the writers of All in theFamily threw at her, including this.

Played to comedic effect in the episode of My Family where Janey has a baby. As Susan and Ben drive to the hospital, there are flashbacks to the birth of their first child, with much drama and over-the-top screaming. When they arrive, the baby has been born with no trouble at all, and Janey is sitting up painting her nails.

In the UK comedy series Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps, Janet goes into labour in her own house. While her husband Jonny proves utterly useless in getting her to the hospital (she eventually gets there by the end of the episode), she spends much time screaming and wailing, describing the sensation as "like someone's opening an umbrella in (her) ass" and screaming "the baby's trying to kill me!".

Aeryn's labor in the Farscape mini series. Which she has whilst under siege. Half-standing up. Having fought up to the moment she decided she wanted the baby out of her. Even without the pun this may count for...y'know.

"Shooting makes me feel better!"

Scrubs played with this Trope, during one of JD's dream sequences, when he ponders that most women assume childbirth will be this wonderful, magical thing. It then switches to a black-and-white fifties-era instructional video, where JD spells it out:

JD: (to the viewer) You'll fart, pee, puke, and poo in front of ten strangers who will be staring intently at your vagina—which, by the way, has an 80% chance of tearing! (Gives thumbs up)(pause)Woman: (turns to her husband)You do it!

Justified when Kim was giving birth to JD's son. At the moment she was under some emotional turmoil and stress like the fact JD doesn't trust her ( she lied about having a miscarriage), he's only with her for the child, all of JD's friends treat her badly and she's worried about raising the child alone. The straw that breaks the camel's back is while she's (painfully) pushing the baby out, she asks if JD will ever forgive her. He says "No." and... well you can guess what happens next.

Psych averts this rather well in "Shawn vs. the Red Phantom," when Chief Vick goes into labor. It takes the entire episode (at least a day) for Vick to have the baby, and while she sweats and groans a lot, there's no screaming and she does so while on a tilted table. Lassiter comically DOES faint, although he claims he was just resting his eyes and fell over slightly.

Played straight when Marlowe Lassiter goes into labor "Shawn and Gus Truck Things Up" in Season 8. They drive her to the hospital in a food truck.

Coupling devotes an entire episode to Steve's horror at Susan planning to give birth without an epidural. Being practical, she's already realised that she's probably going to change her mind when it actually happens, and says it's Steve's job to decide if she really wants the drugs or not. In the event, he decides she does.

(after Susan has told Steve to ask her three times if she wants an epidural)

(cut to: Steve flying out the maternity ward doors backwards and ramming into the corridor wall)

Happened in Smallville. The Baby wasn't so much "born" as it was "completely evaporated the mother and the car she was in".

Subverted in the end of Threads, with Jane giving birth (with the expected screaming), but then no crying from the baby, for it seems to be stillborn (we never really see). Jane's reaction of screaming when she sees the baby suggests that it has some deformity, no doubt caused by all the radiation going around as a result of World War III.

The Steven Spielberg mini-series Into The West has Jacob Wheeler's Sioux wife giving birth to their youngest child while they're briefly living with his parents; one of Jacob's cousins is surprised by her stoicism, saying that "She didn't cry out. Not once!", which leads to a rather racist comment by another cousin who believes that the Indians "don't feel pain. At least not like we do." Ironically, this cousin is later kidnapped by and married off to an Indian; when she eventually goes native and willingly becomes his wife, the birth of their child is shown immediately after it happened, with the implication that she didn't scream either.

Roseanne averted this almost entirely. Jackie's labor was long enough for them to drive home from the diner, sit around for a while, go to the hospital and sit around for a while, and then she even took an epidural. They did play it straight, however, in the flashbacks to Roseanne delivering Becky and DJ, where Roseanne is screaming and hollering at Dan to never touch her again.

Firefly has an example in "Heart of Gold" when a pregnant prostitute gives birth. There is much screaming, due to a) giving birth, b) the child's father turning up to kidnap him, and c) the ongoing gun fight between the father's posse and the whorehouse's residents backed up by Serenity's crew.

Giving birth turned up every so often in ER, but one notable example had the panting mother wheeling through the building with her husband and Doctor Kovacs.

Kovacs: Do you want an epidural?

Husband: No, we want a natural birth, don't we, honey?

Wife: [bats husband aside, grabs Kovacs' shirt] Give me drugs!

The Steve Harvey Show employs this trope when Regina's sorority sister Tiffany gives birth during a visit to Chicago. A huge snowstorm hits the city trapping Tiffany, her husband, Regina, and Cedric (posing as Steve who was posing as Regina's husband AND posing as an OB-GYN)in Regina's apartment. Hilarity Ensues.

Happens in the season 1 finale of Glee when Quinn gives birth, while their rivals, Vocal Adrenaline, perform "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen. It's a very intense scene, though it does make you wonder about the timeframe, since she goes from her water breaking to giving birth within the span of five minutes. Seven if we count the commercial break.

This happens in the Christmas Episode of Misfits, where Marnie's waters break, and she is forced to give birth in the community centre - with much screaming and swearing - as the paramedics don't arrive on time (although it is mentioned that they've called the ambulance numerous times, so exactly how long they'd been waiting there is unclear). Afterwards, calm resumes, and the gang even sing a Christmas carol to the suspiciously large newborn baby. The pleasant mood is then completely shattered by the emergence of the afterbirth, which Nathan mistakes for an evil alien baby that needs to die. He starts screaming (even more than Marnie did while she was giving birth) and frantically stamping on it, splattering the horrified gathered company in copious amounts of blood.

Fringe does this in Season one. Justified in that she wasn't even pregnant half an hour before giving birth and it actually ended up snapping her spineNessie style. Averted with Fauxlivia.

Happened with Scully on The X-Files, though she's less screaming from pain and more screaming at the uninvited Super Soldiers not to take her baby.

In Up All Night, Reagen is adamant about following a birth plan, and after trying to push unsuccessfully for a while, she tries to intimidate the doctor after he wants to do a C-section

Although we haven't actually gotten to it yet, a brief Flash Forward reveals that the birth of Marshall and Lily's baby on How I Met Your Mother will be one of these, probably partly due to the fact that Eriksen babies are notoriously huge, while Lily is...well, played by Alyson Hannigan. Comes complete with Lily's eccentric foreign Doctor screaming abuse at her to make her keep pushing and a sweat-drenched Lily roaring "WHERE THE HELL IS MARSHALL??!!"

Law & Order: Special Victims Unit takes a more realistic approach with Cathy Stabler. She moans while contracting and strains to push the baby out but never screams.

In The Golden Girls, Blanche's daughter Rebecca has a natural childbirth, which makes it understandably more painful (Blanche comments, "Honey, I know I told you where babies come from, did I ever mention where they come out?"). However, then they go and visit a birthing center as a possibility, one happens offscreen.

Happens all the time in Call the Midwife, of course. We are dealing with the era before painkillers and anaesthetics became common in obstetric practice; the first arrival of nitrous oxide as a pain reliever comes in Series 2 (1958) and is heralded as a great advance, and there isn't enough of the stuff to go 'round. Thus the rare occasion when it is averted (without the nitrous) all the more profound.

Mostly averted on Only Fools and Horses. Despite having a detailed birth episode for the arrival of Damien, the portrayal is pretty realistic- Raquel yells a few times but doesn't scream, and it's made very clear that they're in the birth suite for several hours before he arrives. Joan's birth, more than ten years later, is off camera and by caesarean.

Averted on The 100: Octavia's mother gives birth to her without assistance and presumably without medication, but she barely even pants during the process, let alone scream. A necessary aversion, since the Ark's Population Control laws make Octavia's birth illegal; if her mother had screamed during delivery, people would have found out about her pregnancy, and both she and Octavia would have been executed.

Several times on Emergency!. Justified in that as paramedics they don't get called in unless there are already situational factors to make the birth problematic— the standout example being in first-season episode "Brushfire", where there's a wildfire approaching the house and the baby is so close to being born that they can't get the mother out.

The Guardian enemy in Dead Space. It constantly lets out an agonized wail, and spawns little turret necromorphs through a hole in it's stomach. It's screaming goes up an octave when a pod is spawned.

Tales of Graces: The birth of Carl and Fermat's baby. Like the Fullmetal Alchemist example above the people in the room are fairly young (18 for Asbel and Cheria, 22 for Pascal and possibly Fermat and Carl), don't understand the gravity of what's happening (Sophie), are panicking and since it's Fermat's first child, it's the perfect recipe for this trope.

Webcomics

The Law of Purple: Gypsy gives birth off-screen, so it's unknown whether she has a genuine Screaming Birth, but when her contractions start she immediately announces this fact to her husband (and the three other men in the room with him) by bursting in and screaming "I'M GOING INTO LABOR!!".

The sidestory "Spiderborn" features Mel'arnach going into labor and giving at least one very loud scream that can be heard outside the room (likely at the crowning stage), but the rest of the delivery apparently went over smoothly, though she was severely weakened afterward. Justified in that she was scared out of her wits, had never given birth before, and knew the child was likely to either not be normal or be taken away from her soon after, and in the case of the first situation both of them would probably be killed. Drow in general have an easy time giving birth, and as a result often have dozens of children.

In the main story Shinae is first reintroduced after the timeskip undergoing one of these, which turns out to be entirely justified since the baby was somehow corrupted by her taint in the womb and born horribly mutated, including being covered in spikes. Ow.

There is no GATE; we did not fight there: The interlude *Protector's Pride* focuses on the birth of Kyte's younger twin siblings, Adrastus and Aella. In the many hours it takes, Adrianna is noted to only stop screaming and cursing at the very end of her labor.

Kytheus: What’s going on?! Why is mom screaming? Is she hurt?

Kell: It hurts, when a woman gives birth. Rennea and the midwives are taking care of her. The only thing we can do is wai—

In the Hey Arnold! episode "The Journal," Arnold's mother Stella is forced to have her son in an abandoned San Lorenzo temple while lava from a nearby erupting volcano flows past. Taking all this into account - not to mention the pain she must be enduring having natural childbirth to someone with Arnold's unusually shaped head - she has no problem showing her displeasure at her situation when her husband Miles tries to help her with her Lamaze breathing:

Which is followed by a pretty intense scene with Stella screaming off-screen while their friend Eduardo witnesses the destruction caused by the volcano eruption, which actually seems to be triggered by the screaming. Everything calms down once Arnold is born.

Averted similarly to how it was in ElfQuest in Avatar: The Last Airbender. The timing is inconvenient, and Sokka still plays the part of panicked guy that passes out, but the mother is shown laying down at a 45-degree angle, with her family holding her hands, and goes for heavy panting rather than screaming. It's seen as so beautiful that it gets the hero out of a Heroic B.S.O.D. he was going through for the majority of the episode.

In The Rugrats Movie Didi screams just before giving birth to Dil, and for some reason the camera goes into her mouth, shows a strange montage of the history of the universe, and comes out of her alongside Dil opening his eyes for the first time.

Luann screams all the way to the hospital before her husband's sister insisted that she give birth in a medical center with everyone watching, the Hills had to sneak her out.

Happened to Didi just before giving birth to Good Hank combined with Hank and Peggy's skydiving moment.

In Home Movies, Brendan's step-mother is giving birth and screaming and insulting at everyone in vicinity, including him. The hilarious part is that he takes the screaming at face value and yells and insults back at her.

Lois's sister Carol on Family Guy, minus the "YOU DID THIS TO ME!" and with a series of guttaral moans rather than screams. Ironically, the doctor passes out during the delivery, but only because he stuck his hand repeatedly into a bin of used needles while looking for gloves.

Hilariously/nightmarishly implied on The Simpsons in an episode that reenacts various Tall Tales (American folklore). In the vignette with Homer as Paul Bunyan, Abe (normal-sized) goes back in the cabin after the birth of his son, who takes up the entire living room. He runs into the bedroom and asks his (also normal-sized) wife how the birth went. She's in shock and weakly mutters "Whiskey... please..."

In The Flintstones special Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby (set in the future with Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm as a married couple expecting their first child) this happens to Pebbles as she's giving birth to her twins (at least the first one; the second is born in about five seconds without any screaming heard while Fred gloats over the first baby being a boy. This was the first animated work (at least in the U.S.) to show a birth on-screen.

In an Adventure Time episode, Finn and Jake encounter a married couple of giant spiders named Ed and Barb. By the end of the episode, the latter experiences one of these, giving birth to millions of babies.

The High Priestess of Aku undergoes one in the premier of Samurai Jack Season 5 when delivering the septuplets who will become the Daughters of Aku. Not only does she survive, she walks it off and has enough energy left over to deliver a sermon in praise to Aku.

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